


Running From Grenades

by just_another_classic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 09:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18775297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_another_classic/pseuds/just_another_classic
Summary: Steve and Peggy reunite in the past. He wants to stay. She can't let him.





	Running From Grenades

**Author's Note:**

> So...I wasn't too happy with Steve's ending in Endgame. While on the surface level, it is nice that he found a "happy ending", it's something that sort of falls apart for me under scrutiny. This is my response to that ending -- a canon divergence of sorts. 
> 
> This is also a bit of a Steggy fic, insomuch that they kiss and love one another. But I believe in warnings, and my fair warning is that they do not get their Endgame ending. 
> 
> Also, this is literally my first MCU fic. That's right: Endgame gave me enough feelings (ire) to wade into writing for this fandom. What a world.

The first thing Peggy does when she see Steve Rogers standing before her is shoot.

He dodges it, the first sign that perhaps the man standing before might actually be the person he claims to be, but the War has taught her to be apprehensive, to question. Anger, fear, and hope churn in her belly and possibilities race through her mind. A clone? HYDRA? Steve has died, disappeared into the ocean. It had been years.

“There was a time when I thought you were sleeping with Howard, remember? The fondue thing? I was jealous, because I wanted to be with you. I was stupid and..”

He’s rambling, this man with Steve’s face and voice. He rambling about memories, shared memories and emotions, and it’s that which causes Peggy to believe that maybe this man is Steve. 

“I owe you a dance. And I’m here to ask you for that.”

Perhaps it’s because she misses him so much that she lowers the gun. Perhaps it’s the earnestness in his voice and the raw emotion in his eyes that convinces her that he’s telling the truth. What Peggy does know is that when she drops her weapon and breathes his name, it takes no time at all for him to sweep across the room and pull her into a kiss.

It tastes like coming home.

 

-/-

 

In his arms as they sway to music only they can hear, Peggy allows herself to ask  _ how, when,  _ and  _ why now?  _ She’s allowed herself a few moments to bask, to cry, to revel in the warmth of Steve’s arms and a moment she believed that she would never have the chance to experience.

His voice has a touch of humor when he replies. “That’s a bit of a long story, more of a sit down type of conversation.”

“Oh.” She’s not sure if she’s ready to disentangle herself from him. As she presses her head against his chest, she hears the pounding of his heart. It had sped up when she’d questioned him, and that is what tells her she should pry, as much as neither of them want to at the moment. “I have chairs, and pretty comfortable sofa.”

He stills, his heart picking up an even faster pace than she thought possible. “Do you have anything strong to drink? You’re going to need it.”

“Oh ye of little faith. I’m a tough woman, Rogers.”

He laughs, and rumble vibrates in his chest. “As if I could ever forget.”

 

-/-

 

She thinks she should have taken him up for a drink.

Steve weaves a tale that seems lifted right from Wells’ novels, time travel and alien invasions and gods from other worlds. His story sounds wild and amazing, but also incredibly lonely. He speaks of a decade of pain and trauma, and even though she can’t see it, she knows he still carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. Peggy reaches out to take his hand, and he squeezes it.

She tries and fails not to ask questions, to just let him speak, but her inquisitiveness wins out. 

“Howard’s son? Truly?” The thought of Howard as a father is enough to send her mind reeling, let alone him marrying. The idea that his son will dress up in a suit of metal is somehow more palatable. What does that say about her.

“He was a right son of a bitch, but Howard would be proud.” Peggy doesn’t miss how Steve refers to Howard’s son in the past tense, whereas moments earlier he had described a man named Sam in the present. She also doesn’t miss Steve’s glassy-eyed stare. “We never got along. Not really. Different ideologies, and I think — well, I know — he always resented me.”

“But he was still your friend.” She’s reminded, vaguely, of the aftermath of losing Bucky.  _ But we didn’t lose him, did we,  _ she thinks. Not if what Steve says is true.

He nods. “And I didn’t get to say goodbye. Story of my life, right?”

Her heart constricts. She tries to imagine how he might feel, a person out of time. How isolating it must have been. She takes comfort in the fact that he found his people amid all of the chaos — a Norse god, spies, scientists, soldiers, and even old friends. It might not be the type of family they taught about in Sunday school, but deep down, she’s happy he found them. She can stomach the pain in his tale by know he has had people he loved surrounding him. 

“The only good thing about this mess is that I get to see you again.” Steve gives her a glassy-eyed, but hopeful expression. “I’ve missed you.”

She’s noticed that he’s said nothing about her in that future of his, and doesn’t ask. She knows she isn’t in it. It makes sense, of course. She shouldn’t be a factor, likely long dead before 2023 even ignoring a monster’s...snap? But no one likes to dwell on their demise, inevitable as it may be. 

So instead of inquiring further about her life, she instead tells him the truth. “I’ve missed you too.”

He seems to read her thoughts. He’s gotten so much more perceptive over the years, it seems, because he comments, “I’m surprised you haven’t asked about you.”

“I’m not sure I want to. Wouldn’t that change things? I find out I die at 40, and I spend my final days scared of that shadow. No thank you.”

“The Peggy Carter I know has never cowered in the face of death.” There’s something in the way his says it clues her in to more than he intends. He knows how she dies, of course he does. If their roles had been reversed, she knows without a doubt she would have searched for his fate. “Besides, I’m not even sure that’s how it works. Bruce — uh, the green guy I told you about — said it was more of an alternate reality thing. It...really doesn’t make sense. He’s one of the smartest guys I know, and I don’t think he could explain it.”

“So when you pop back to your time, it’s like nothing would have changed,” she reasons aloud, trying to wrap her mind around the concepts. Perhaps she should have spent more of her time reading science fiction rather than histories and biographies. Those hadn’t prepared her for this moment. Then again, Peggy doubts anything could have. 

Steve drops his gaze, takes a deep breath, then looks back at her, apprehensive. “About that. What do you think about me staying?”

 

-/-

 

Once upon a time, in the aftermath of the war and losing Steve, Peggy had imagined this very moment. Steve coming back with an absurd story of how he survived, and the two of them finally having that dance. 

The reality of it is far different.

As she sits on the sofa, his question about staying lingering in the air, she takes in the man before her: broken, sad, and afraid. He’s a man to whom the years have been cruel, far crueler than they’ve had any right to be. No wonder he wants to come back, to come home, to use some mix of magic and science. 

It’s that thought that prompts her next line of inquiry. “Steve, what happens to me when you come from?”

He blinks, surprised. He hadn’t expected this response, and to be honest, she surprises herself with it. “I thought you said you didn’t want to know.”

“I changed my mind.” She squeezes his hand. It’s cheating. “Please.”

He licks his lips. Glances down. “You lived a long, happy life. You die an old woman with no regrets.”

It’s not the full story. This much she knows. “How do you know?”

“You told me.” So this isn’t the first time he sees her again. Him going down with the Valkyrie wasn’t the last she saw him until now. There’s something comforting about that, if there’s anything comforting to be found in a discussion about one’s death and the future. “You go on to inspire so many people. Your niece,” he winces, and she wonders why, “she joins S.H.I.E.L.D. because of you. You buy her first thigh holster.”

“I’m glad I don’t lose my sense of fashion in my old age,” she replies with all the humor she doesn’t feel. 

Steve laughs, but it’s a hollow thing. “My niece follows in my footsteps, but I hear no mention of kids. So I take it that I stay a spinster and remain married to my job?”

Not that it matters, ultimately. A partner to share her life with would be nice, but there’s more to life than a man or children. She can succeed just as well on her own. And if she’s able to do it and inspire others to do good? Well, that can be enough for her.

A shadow crosses Steve’s face. It’s one she knows all too well. It’s one she’s worn herself. Sadness. Jealousy. Loss. “I don’t think you wanted them to. Your kids, I mean. They were proud of you, though. Your husband passed before I was able to meet him, but by all accounts he was a good man.”

“Well, of course, do you expect me to be someone who settles?” Because if she’s going to be a woman who marries, which in one world, she apparently is, then she’s going to go for someone extraordinary.

She had once allowed herself to think that man could be Steve, and judging by the way he kissed her, she’s pretty sure he once (currently?) thought the same way. Their conversation has taken a strange turn, one she knows Steve didn’t intend and one she doesn’t want. There’s a sense of wrongness when discussing her love life -- one that doesn’t exist yet -- with Steve. How strange it is to have a future laid out for her like this, presented by someone so dear to her past. 

She has a headache.

She really should have gotten herself a drink.

“You don’t look happy,” Steve comments. There’s a hint of hope there, but his overall tone is concerned. “I shouldn’t have told you. I’m sorry.”

“I asked.”

“I dangled the future in front of you. I’m not playing fair.”

“Oh, Steve, when has life ever been fair?” There had been nothing fair about the Depression. There had been nothing fair about the War. There had been nothing fair about Steve crashing into the water. The list goes on and on, so long that Peggy sometimes doubts there’s any such thing as fairness in the world. Even this moment, Steve sitting beside her, is so painfully unfair that it it hurts.

“It’s not,” he agrees, years of pain and grief and sadness written across his face, “but, maybe we can make it just a little bit more fair.”

He squeezes her hand. He’s talking about staying again. With her.

She could say yes, agree. It would be so damn easy. It’s what she wants. She doesn’t care, at the moment, and hour faceless husband and their unknown children. What she cares about is the living and breathing man next to her.

And that’s why she has to break his heart.

“You know you can’t stay.”

“I can. I already told you that it won’t change anything when —  _ where _ — I came from,” he argues, desperate. He takes both of her hands into his own. She’d forgotten how much larger his hands were than hers. “The family I told you about, they would be okay. Is that what you’re worried about?”

“Yes and no. I’m not worried about them. They don’t matter, not really. To be honest, I can barely even comprehend their existence. They’re like a dream, a very nice one, but not my reality.” Peggy allows Steve to hold her hands. She thinks it’s what keeping them both together. She takes a deep breath. “But to you, they’re real. And the Steve Rogers I know wouldn’t try to that take away from someone who told him she was happy.”

He doesn’t say anything. He looks down, refusing to meet her eyes. 

“I spent so many nights wishing you would walk back into my life, Steve. You have no idea—“

“Actually, I do.”

“Sorry, you do.” He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t, would he? “What I’m trying to say is that I wished so badly for you to be here. Just not like this.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I wanted you here because you somehow survived the crash — “

“I  _ did _ survive the crash.”

“ — not here because you’re scared and grieving,” she finishes gently.

She’d listened to his story, listened as his voice cracked when speaking of a woman named Natasha and saw the pain etched on his face when he mentioned Howard’s son. She had seen him shake when he recounted everyone disappearing, a horror that she can’t bear to imagine. 

Steve had sounded traumatized.

Steve  _ looks _ traumatized, hunched over and red-eyed. 

She’s seen the same trauma in the eyes of the men coming back from the War, in way civilians who lived through bombs raining down from the skies carry themselves down the street. It’s something she felt herself. But Peggy also knows there’s a right way of handling the trauma, and then there’s this: running the past, to comfort, and ensconcing oneself away from truly dealing with the loss. 

She understands why Steve came back. She doesn’t blame him either. Most men with the literal ability to turn back and clock and start over would — but Steve Rogers is not most men. Even before his was physically changed by the serum, he hadn’t been like most men. Most men don’t jump in front of a grenade. Staying here, in the past, would be akin to running away from it.

Peggy slides her hands from Steve, and moves to cup his face. She’s afraid that he’ll pull away. He doesn’t. “You’re a good man, Steve, a good man that has been dealt a bad hand. You deserve happiness, but this isn’t it. You wouldn’t be happy in the end. You’d regret leaving behind everyone you care about.”

“I’d regret leaving you. Still do.”

“Yes, but the difference between me and them is that you know I’m going to be okay,” she reminds him. “Can you say the same thing about them? And would you be okay with not knowing?”

He’s quiet for a moment before he responds. “No.”

He moves away from her, sighing and sinking deeper into the sofa. Peggy hopes that she is doing the right thing. What if she isn’t? “It’s okay to be afraid, Steve. It’s okay to hurt. We all do.”

“Even you?” He quirks a brow. He’s kidding with his question, mostly, but it makes Peggy wonders if he’s realized the pedestal he’s placed her on. 

“Even me.”

“The reason I came back here, the reason I wanted to stay is because Tony would always say that I should get a life. And he gave up his for all of us. He has a kid, you know? And Nat, she..she…” He voice trails off. Now, he doesn’t try to hide his tears. Nor should he. Peggy’s has enough of the ‘real men don’t cry’ mentality. Bottling the emotions makes everything worse, in the end. 

“They both sound like heroes.” Peggy tells him. She wishes she could have the chance to meet Howard’s son and the woman known as Nat. “But with all due respect to Tony, he’s wrong about one thing: you already have a life. It’s not the life he wants, but yours is just as real as his. You have friends. You have work that you love. That sounds like plenty enough of a life for me.”

“I don’t know if I love being Captain America,” he concedes. “Not anymore. I like what the shield represents, but I’m not sure I can do it anymore.”

“Then stop being Captain America. You’ve completed your tour of duty. It’s okay to retire into civilian life.” Plenty of other soldiers have. Why shouldn’t Steve? “It doesn’t mean you have to stop doing good or helping people. You just won’t do it while wearing an American flag. Let someone else take the mantle. Focus on just being Steve.”

“I don’t even know what means anymore.”

“Then make it a priority to find out,” she insists. “This is something you have to find out for yourself, but for what it’s worth, the Steve Rogers I know never needed the shield or the serum to be a good man.”

He huffs out a small, self-deprecating laugh. “You always saw the best of me.”

“Believe me when I say that’s not hard to do.”

His expression turns serious. “I love you, Peggy. I’m not expecting you to say it back, but if we’re talking about regrets, I had to tell you.”

She should tell him she feels the safe. It’s what she wants to do. She doesn’t. “I know.”

“How very Han Solo of you,” he replies. There’s a sparkle of mirth in his eyes at a joke she doesn’t quite follow.

“I don’t understand.”

“Welcome to my life,” he teases. His expression then turns serious. “I know I have to go back, but before I do, can I ask you one more thing.”

_ Anything.  _ “Of course.”

“Can I have one last dance?”

This time, it’s Peggy’s turn to feel the sting of tears in her eyes. “I would despair if you didn’t.”

-/-

 

They dance for what seems like hours, and maybe hours do pass. However long they sway together, it’s not nearly long enough.

And then he’s gone. Only then does Peggy allow herself to truly break down. She wonders if she will forever regret letting him go, if she made a massive mistake.

It’s only after she’s cried all the tears she thinks she can cry that she notices the slip of paper with writing in Steve’s familiar scrawl.

Coordinates.

_ Find Me. -Steve _

 

 


End file.
